Fanfic: She Sells Sea Shells [Do Over]
Mar. 31st, 2012 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
argentum_lsTitle: She Sells Sea Shells
Summary: Joel's chance to fix his life requires an earlier start.
Word Count: 1636
As the electricity from the paramedic’s paddles ripped through Joel’s body, he heard his sister’s disbelieving comment, “They were on?” She had put them to his head as a joke, maybe a bit of revenge for derailing her attempt to score drugs off the paramedic. They were on. The electricity tore through him, and the ground came up to meet him in a rush, and then it turned to water and he was being submerged in a different shock of cold and wet. He inhaled a scorching lungful of salt water and doubled over, fighting for air that wasn’t to be found. He instinctively kicked and his head broke the wave that had just finished crashing over him. He heard shouting, felt turbulation next to him, and then arms were grabbing his and hauling him up at the same time as another wave landed on him and forced him back under.
“Joel, Joel, come on, kick.” The voice was distorted through the water in Joel’s ears, but its urgency was unmistakable. He kicked forward and up and broke the surface again, and again. Each time, he felt himself being alternately pulled and pushed through the water. Just when he thought he couldn’t breathe—couldn’t not breathe—any longer, his head broke the surface for real. He found that his feet could touch the sand. He stood up, still coughing away that first breath of water. His throat and nose burned from their mistreatment.
As soon as the air flowed freely into his lungs, he set about taking stock. He swiped a hand over his face and head to clear the water from his eyes, and was surprised to discover that his hair was cut short, a style he had never favored. He also found a burgeoning knot over his temple that was going to be an impressive egg. It was tender and hurt like hell. A wooden surfboard was bobbing in the water not too far away from him.
“The board hit his head, but he’s going to be fine,” the voice yelled to someone, confirming Joel’s suspicions about where the knot had come from. “That wipeout was aces!” the voice added in utter amazement, now speaking to him.
Joel blinked the last of the water out of his eyes, and turned to see a young teen, no older than fourteen if he was a day, standing waist deep in the ocean. Like Joel, his hair was cut short and was slicked back from the water. He blinked again as he suddenly recognized the teen. It was his best friend Pat. Except, the last time he had seen Pat was just before Cheryl stuck the electric paddles to Joel’s head, and that Pat had been thirty-four years old, just like Joel.
Joel scrambled the rest of the way toward the shore, leaving his best friend and the surfboard behind, and fell to his knees in the sand. He looked down, expecting to see the soft poochiness of the spare tire that none of his efforts at the gym had been able to keep at bay and the loose black swimming trunks that he liked to think made him look slimmer. Instead he saw a black stretch of thin fabric over the slender and flat stomach of a boy who still hadn’t made much progress with puberty. What the hell? The rest of the suit appeared to be a kind of short-shorts that clung to body but weren’t form fitting.
“Back away, back way,” Pat ordered, pushing his way through the crowd that was beginning to gather around. He shoved them back with no regard for how much smaller he was than a lot of the other guys, all of whom seemed to have found Joel’s wipeout to be aces and swell. “Let the cat get some air,” Pat ordered, “He nearly drowned out there.”
Joel pressed his hands flat against his stomach, then ran them up over his arms, patting down his torso. His touch confirmed that the body was young and physically fit. He hadn’t looked like that since-- “What year is it?” Joel asked suddenly.
“1931,” Pat responded, as if the answer was obvious. He eyed the knot on Joel’s forehead with suspicion.
1931, Joel thought. That made him—he did the math in his head, and started to cough again when he reached the answer—“I’m not going to be born for another 36 years.” He looked down at his body again, running through some quick movement tests. His fingers and toes wiggled on command, the solid pinch he gave his arm hurt, and the drops of water he licked off his lips was definitely salty and wet. This was all real. It had to be. He’d never had a dream before that was so detailed.
Pat moved to stand over him, his arms out holding back the onlookers like he was a police officer holding back the traffic. “I think you got beaned a little hard there.”
Joel swept his eyes over the half-dozen guys who had gathered around, noting their antiquated hair styles and the ridiculous bathing suits they wore that looked more like wrestling uniforms than swimming apparel. The guys ranged in age across the teens, and all of them looked twitchy, like they couldn’t decide between hitting the waves again or sticking around in case Joel died and they missed a story to tell their grandkids.
His eyes went wide at that thought. Joel jumped to his feet, pushing past the other surfers. He had to find a mirror. There was no way that what he was seeing was true. He raced for the parking lot, figuring there had to be one and that a changing room would be somewhere near it. He’d only been to a beach a couple of times in his life, and to the best of his recollection the last time was when he was about eight years old.
As he hopped across the hot sand, he could hear his father whining about the pointlessness of vacations: “No one in his right mind would spend three days driving someplace in order to sit around doing nothing when he got there,” he’d say, usually from his favorite position in his easy chair. “Besides, staying at home is better for your health. It’s a fact!”
The real fact was that Joel had hit his head and woken up on beach he’d never been to, wearing clothes he would never be caught dead in. He cleared a sand dune, and skidded to a stop, his feet sinking into small troughs his sudden stop had created. A line of cars were parked haphazardly at the edge of the beach. Not one of them had been made after 1930. While he was no classic car expert, his father had dragged him to enough car shows for a few details to sink in.
He gasped and swore. “I need a drink.”
From behind him he heard Pat snort. “Good luck with that. There’s no gin joint that’s gonna let you in.”
“Pat,” he said, turning around. “Where am I?”
Pat frowned, an expression that looked unnatural on his face. “Who’s Pat?” he asked. He touched his chest. “I’m Abe. Your best friend.”
Abe? Now it was Joel’s turn to frown. Why did that name ring a bell? He ran through a quick mental list of everyone he’d met and came up blank. “Abe,” he repeated.
Abe cocked an eyebrow at him, and the gesture looked so familiar. Then it clicked. His grandfather had had a friend named Abe who’d died when Joel was young. Who’d died when Joel was eight. That was the last time the Larsen family had been to the beach, because they had been out visiting his grandfather. A year or so later, Grandpa Joel had moved to the Larsens’ town because he had said that everything still important to him was there. And now Joel remembered how his grandfather had doted on him, spoiling him well beyond the norm for a grandparent. Joel had always believed it was because he was his grandfather’s namesake.
He sank to his knees with a new notion blooming. He’d had it all wrong. He wasn’t the namesake. He had become his grandfather. He had been transported back in time and into his grandfather’s barely pubescent body. And, “Oh, God,” he murmured. What was this? Another dream? Another chance?
“Should I go get a doctor?” Abe asked. “I can go get a doctor.” He was shifting from one foot to the other. White sand stuck to his feet and legs, broken only by the paths formed from the rivulets of water dripping from his suit.
Joel shook his head and raked his fingers through his still wet hair. His thoughts spun, vacillating rapidly between a conviction that he had to be dreaming and the certainty that he couldn’t be. Whatever this was, he had no idea what to think about it, what to think about the possibilities. If this was real—and he had to believe that it was considering how much of his grandfather’s behavior, how many of the things he had said to Joel, suddenly made sense—he had been given the chance to relive a whole life. Not his life, though. His grandfather’s life. What could he do with that, knowing what he knew about how the future would unwind?
He was going to need help to get through this, though. He knew the future. He didn’t know the past. He’d need a native speaker, as it were, someone he could trust to help him navigate the generation before he was born.
He stood back up slowly, brushing the sand off his skin and ridiculous bathing suit as he went. “Abe,” he said, “I have something to tell you…”
END
Fulfills AU!Bingo Extra Parallel Squares, prompts #2 Surfers and #4 "The Long Weekend"
Summary: Joel's chance to fix his life requires an earlier start.
Word Count: 1636
As the electricity from the paramedic’s paddles ripped through Joel’s body, he heard his sister’s disbelieving comment, “They were on?” She had put them to his head as a joke, maybe a bit of revenge for derailing her attempt to score drugs off the paramedic. They were on. The electricity tore through him, and the ground came up to meet him in a rush, and then it turned to water and he was being submerged in a different shock of cold and wet. He inhaled a scorching lungful of salt water and doubled over, fighting for air that wasn’t to be found. He instinctively kicked and his head broke the wave that had just finished crashing over him. He heard shouting, felt turbulation next to him, and then arms were grabbing his and hauling him up at the same time as another wave landed on him and forced him back under.
“Joel, Joel, come on, kick.” The voice was distorted through the water in Joel’s ears, but its urgency was unmistakable. He kicked forward and up and broke the surface again, and again. Each time, he felt himself being alternately pulled and pushed through the water. Just when he thought he couldn’t breathe—couldn’t not breathe—any longer, his head broke the surface for real. He found that his feet could touch the sand. He stood up, still coughing away that first breath of water. His throat and nose burned from their mistreatment.
As soon as the air flowed freely into his lungs, he set about taking stock. He swiped a hand over his face and head to clear the water from his eyes, and was surprised to discover that his hair was cut short, a style he had never favored. He also found a burgeoning knot over his temple that was going to be an impressive egg. It was tender and hurt like hell. A wooden surfboard was bobbing in the water not too far away from him.
“The board hit his head, but he’s going to be fine,” the voice yelled to someone, confirming Joel’s suspicions about where the knot had come from. “That wipeout was aces!” the voice added in utter amazement, now speaking to him.
Joel blinked the last of the water out of his eyes, and turned to see a young teen, no older than fourteen if he was a day, standing waist deep in the ocean. Like Joel, his hair was cut short and was slicked back from the water. He blinked again as he suddenly recognized the teen. It was his best friend Pat. Except, the last time he had seen Pat was just before Cheryl stuck the electric paddles to Joel’s head, and that Pat had been thirty-four years old, just like Joel.
Joel scrambled the rest of the way toward the shore, leaving his best friend and the surfboard behind, and fell to his knees in the sand. He looked down, expecting to see the soft poochiness of the spare tire that none of his efforts at the gym had been able to keep at bay and the loose black swimming trunks that he liked to think made him look slimmer. Instead he saw a black stretch of thin fabric over the slender and flat stomach of a boy who still hadn’t made much progress with puberty. What the hell? The rest of the suit appeared to be a kind of short-shorts that clung to body but weren’t form fitting.
“Back away, back way,” Pat ordered, pushing his way through the crowd that was beginning to gather around. He shoved them back with no regard for how much smaller he was than a lot of the other guys, all of whom seemed to have found Joel’s wipeout to be aces and swell. “Let the cat get some air,” Pat ordered, “He nearly drowned out there.”
Joel pressed his hands flat against his stomach, then ran them up over his arms, patting down his torso. His touch confirmed that the body was young and physically fit. He hadn’t looked like that since-- “What year is it?” Joel asked suddenly.
“1931,” Pat responded, as if the answer was obvious. He eyed the knot on Joel’s forehead with suspicion.
1931, Joel thought. That made him—he did the math in his head, and started to cough again when he reached the answer—“I’m not going to be born for another 36 years.” He looked down at his body again, running through some quick movement tests. His fingers and toes wiggled on command, the solid pinch he gave his arm hurt, and the drops of water he licked off his lips was definitely salty and wet. This was all real. It had to be. He’d never had a dream before that was so detailed.
Pat moved to stand over him, his arms out holding back the onlookers like he was a police officer holding back the traffic. “I think you got beaned a little hard there.”
Joel swept his eyes over the half-dozen guys who had gathered around, noting their antiquated hair styles and the ridiculous bathing suits they wore that looked more like wrestling uniforms than swimming apparel. The guys ranged in age across the teens, and all of them looked twitchy, like they couldn’t decide between hitting the waves again or sticking around in case Joel died and they missed a story to tell their grandkids.
His eyes went wide at that thought. Joel jumped to his feet, pushing past the other surfers. He had to find a mirror. There was no way that what he was seeing was true. He raced for the parking lot, figuring there had to be one and that a changing room would be somewhere near it. He’d only been to a beach a couple of times in his life, and to the best of his recollection the last time was when he was about eight years old.
As he hopped across the hot sand, he could hear his father whining about the pointlessness of vacations: “No one in his right mind would spend three days driving someplace in order to sit around doing nothing when he got there,” he’d say, usually from his favorite position in his easy chair. “Besides, staying at home is better for your health. It’s a fact!”
The real fact was that Joel had hit his head and woken up on beach he’d never been to, wearing clothes he would never be caught dead in. He cleared a sand dune, and skidded to a stop, his feet sinking into small troughs his sudden stop had created. A line of cars were parked haphazardly at the edge of the beach. Not one of them had been made after 1930. While he was no classic car expert, his father had dragged him to enough car shows for a few details to sink in.
He gasped and swore. “I need a drink.”
From behind him he heard Pat snort. “Good luck with that. There’s no gin joint that’s gonna let you in.”
“Pat,” he said, turning around. “Where am I?”
Pat frowned, an expression that looked unnatural on his face. “Who’s Pat?” he asked. He touched his chest. “I’m Abe. Your best friend.”
Abe? Now it was Joel’s turn to frown. Why did that name ring a bell? He ran through a quick mental list of everyone he’d met and came up blank. “Abe,” he repeated.
Abe cocked an eyebrow at him, and the gesture looked so familiar. Then it clicked. His grandfather had had a friend named Abe who’d died when Joel was young. Who’d died when Joel was eight. That was the last time the Larsen family had been to the beach, because they had been out visiting his grandfather. A year or so later, Grandpa Joel had moved to the Larsens’ town because he had said that everything still important to him was there. And now Joel remembered how his grandfather had doted on him, spoiling him well beyond the norm for a grandparent. Joel had always believed it was because he was his grandfather’s namesake.
He sank to his knees with a new notion blooming. He’d had it all wrong. He wasn’t the namesake. He had become his grandfather. He had been transported back in time and into his grandfather’s barely pubescent body. And, “Oh, God,” he murmured. What was this? Another dream? Another chance?
“Should I go get a doctor?” Abe asked. “I can go get a doctor.” He was shifting from one foot to the other. White sand stuck to his feet and legs, broken only by the paths formed from the rivulets of water dripping from his suit.
Joel shook his head and raked his fingers through his still wet hair. His thoughts spun, vacillating rapidly between a conviction that he had to be dreaming and the certainty that he couldn’t be. Whatever this was, he had no idea what to think about it, what to think about the possibilities. If this was real—and he had to believe that it was considering how much of his grandfather’s behavior, how many of the things he had said to Joel, suddenly made sense—he had been given the chance to relive a whole life. Not his life, though. His grandfather’s life. What could he do with that, knowing what he knew about how the future would unwind?
He was going to need help to get through this, though. He knew the future. He didn’t know the past. He’d need a native speaker, as it were, someone he could trust to help him navigate the generation before he was born.
He stood back up slowly, brushing the sand off his skin and ridiculous bathing suit as he went. “Abe,” he said, “I have something to tell you…”
END
Fulfills AU!Bingo Extra Parallel Squares, prompts #2 Surfers and #4 "The Long Weekend"
